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America Takes Over Vietnam: The French View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Extract

The analysis of the French view on the American first commitment in Vietnam depends on the point of view from which the study is made. The bilateral relations background has created different sensitivities on this issue. On the one hand, the United States was an ally of the French government, even if an ambiguous one; on the other hand, a large part of the French opinion, headed by the French communist party, was very suspicious of ‘American imperialism’, in Southeast Asia as well as in Europe. This paper will focus on the official government position, as it emerges from the French archives, especially the financial archives. Indeed, a core issue in this conflict was a financial one.

Type
The American Experience in Asia
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1998

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References

Notes

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7 Laos became independent on 19 July, Cambodia on 8 November.

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14 Mail to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 21 March 1950, Foreign Ministry archives, AO/IC/262.

15 Key to redistribution of the currency duties: seventy-one percent to Vietnam, twenty-two percent to Cambodia and seven percent to Laos.

16 Economic Cooperation Agency, the Marshall Plan institution.

17 Foreign Relations of the United States 1951, Volume VI, Indochina, 30June 1950.

18 Mutual Defence Assistance Program, agreed by France and United States on 27 January 1950.

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22 115 Billion francs.

23 Defense Ministry archives, SHAT, 10 H 154.

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